Pesticides pollute drinking water wells in rural Romania

Seven million people in rural areas of Romania take most of their drinking water from wells, many of which are private. These wells are often polluted with nitrates, bacteria, and pesticides. Romania is not an exception in Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. In the Ukraine 11 million people take drinking water from – often shallow – private wells. For other countries in the region the same seems to apply. Margriet Samwel reports on how a project in one village is improving drinking water quality.

Husband and wife from Romanian village Garla Mare drawing drinking water from their private well. Photo: WECF

In Romania the national drinking water legislation has been consolidated with European Union directives and sets quality levels and control mechanisms for public drinking water systems, yet only 63% of the population is connected to a central drinking water distribution. The legislation does not cover the main source of drinking water for the rural population: private wells. Connecting even 50% of the rural population to a central drinking water and sanitation system would be too expensive for the Romanian government. For private and even for public wells there is no water quality control system. There are only a few Romanian laboratories which have the equipment for adequate water analyses.

Objectives and targets of pilot project ‘Safe Drinking Water’
The German and Dutch Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) and their Romanian NGO partner Medium and Sanitas (M&S) have carried out a multi-stakeholder pilot project in a village of 3,500 inhabitants called Garla Mare. The project was funded by the MATRA programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The pilot project aims at directly improving the health of 300 schoolchildren in Garla Mare as well as the health of all babies in the village by reducing the incidence of gastroenteritis and blue-baby disease through education, better sanitation and clean water provision.

Problems with water quality
Garla Mare is situated in south west Romania in an agricultural area. The main crops are maize, wheat and grapes. The village does not have a central water or waste water system.
    All the citizens of Garla Mare rely for drinking water on public or private wells (wind-wheel-bucket wells). The depth of the wells is between 18 and 28 meters. There are a total of about 400 wells in the village, and they are mostly badly maintained and badly protected against human and animal waste.
    The 1200 households of the village have pit-latrines (toilets) in their yard. The two schools, one kindergarten and the dispensary (clinic) in the village do not have functioning wells and do not have facilities for children or visitors to wash their hands.
    A survey was carried out by the M&S staff among 480 inhabitants to find out their knowledge and experience of health effects from water pollution. The survey showed that there is almost no awareness about the link between polluted water and health, as people think that if the water looks clean it should be clean – nitrates, bacteria and pesticides are not visible to the eye.
    M&S and WECF started with an investigation into water quality. The water tests showed three types of pollution: nitrate, bacteria and pesticides. None of the tested 78 common wells had safe water: nitrate levels averaged 120 mg/l (milligrams per litre – thousandths of a gram) with peaks over 500 mg/l (the limit is 50 mg/kg), faecal-streptococci 5420/litre (limit 0/l) and atrazine up to 160 ng/l (nanogram per litre – billionths of a gram): the limit is 100 ng/l.    
    The high faecal bacteria levels indicate that the primary causes of bacterial pollution are the latrines in people’s gardens. These latrines are not sealed and not emptied, so faecal material and urine can leach in groundwater and cause high levels of faecal bacteria and nitrates.
    In addition to the wells, the citizens of Garla Mare use springs near the Danube which have a greater capacity than the wells. The people and authorities told that they believed that this water was of high quality and unpolluted. The medical doctors advised that the water from the springs should be used for preparing baby food. The villagers, however, use the spring water mainly for washing clothes and carpets.
    At the end of the 1980s, the local authorities started to build a central water supply using the springs. Because of lack of money, the system was not finished.
During the WECF project, this spring-water was intensively tested for its quality. The water tests available from the Romanian sanitary services were not up to date and had only tested hardness and turbidity. The test results were a great disappointment as the level of pesticides found in the spring water was high. The project partners had hoped to be able to use this spring water for installing some common taps in the village.
    Several tests, carried out throughout the year and analysed in a German laboratory, showed that the spring water contained atrazine (a triazine herbicide) in concentrations from 300 up to 500 ng/l. Levels of desethylatrazine, a breakdown product of atrazine, were also found in the spring water, but below the pesticide limit of 100 ng/l. The same was the case for simazine. Intensive agriculture (or possibly a leaking pesticide storage area) were the probable causes of this ground water pollution with the persistent, hormone-disrupting pesticide atrazine. Both atrazine and simazine recently failed the EU pesticide review process for older compounds because of the risks to groundwater and will be withdrawn from most uses in EU countries in 2004 [see PN 62 p.19].

Planning and implementation
The nitrate levels of the spring water were lower then that of the wells. Nevertheless, because of the high atrazine contamination of the spring water, even this ‘best’ available water from Garla Mare fails the EU drinking water directive standards.
    The spring water cannot be supplied to consumers without decreasing the atrazine concentration. To do so would mean that the investment and maintenance costs for a centralised water system would increase dramatically.
    A number of experts presented possible solutions. These solutions ranged from a centralised water supply connected to a large filter to preventive measures such as eco-sanitation and organic farming.
    The installation of a centralised drinking water system connected to a filter to take out the pollution would have been the best solution, but was not affordable within this project.
    A good centralised system would include a wastewater system. The minimum investment costs were 150,000 Euro (pumping up water from the source, filter system, pipes, four or six public taps). The villagers of Garla Mare did not have enough money to pay for drinking water covered by bank loans and long-term repayments. The socio-economic gender analysis showed that the income level of most families was so low that they could hardly provide sufficient food and pay for their electricity bills.
With involvement of the public at meetings, the local project committee and other stakeholders, three preventive solutions were developed: a short-term emergency solution, a medium-term solution and a long-term solution.

Short-term solution: for the most vulnerable group, clean water and better hygiene
Three small-scale water filters were specially made to take out the high levels of nitrates, micro-organisms and pesticides in the village wells. These filters have been installed in schools and in the dispensary. Safe drinking water is available now for children, for preparing baby food and for pregnant women.
    In both schools and in the dispensary the project built hand-washing basins in a covered area so that they do not freeze in winter. The pump provides the water from the well. The children can finally wash their hands after using the toilet. Educational material has been published on how to use the filtered water (for example, only for drinking, not for washing).
    Posters have been put on the public wells in the village showing pollution levels and warning about health effects for children. Eight leaflets on hygiene, nitrates, pesticides, bacteria, their health effects, well-maintenance, organic agriculture and dry-toilets have been written and are being printed.

Local community testing spring water for contaminated residues. Photo: WECF

Medium-term solution: hygienic toilets which do not pollute the ground-water
Six dry-separation toilets (separated collection of the urine and faecal material) have been built in one of the village schools and two ‘low-cost’ dry-separation toilets have been built in two private homes. They will serve as an example that these toilets are easy, low-cost and comfortable. Dry-separation toilets – also called no mix or Eco-sanitation or Ecosan toilets – have four big advantages over flush-toilets: they are cheap (eight to ten US $ in local production for a low-cost model); they do not use (drinking) water for flushing; they avoid faecal material and urine reaching ground water; and they produce a good fertilizer. For the villagers in Garla Mare these toilets are a great improvement over the pit latrines as they do not smell, do not attract flies and can be built inside houses. Educational material has been published to explain the benefits of the dry-toilets, how to use them and how to build them.

Long-term solution: addressing agricultural pollution
An organic farming expert discussed with the villagers the advantages and disadvantages of organic farming. An excursion to a Romanian organic farm was organised for interested villagers. Some villagers are very interested and are planning how to introduce organic farming in their village.
    The long-term health effects will be reduced exposure to pesticides of the villagers in Garla Mare in their work and in their drinking water. And organic farming is interesting from an economic point of view as there is a demand from importers of organic produce from Western Europe.

Focus on low cost solutions
In Romania, pesticide levels in drinking water and groundwater are high, but are not seen as a problem by the public and authorities. This lack of awareness about pesticide pollution and the health effects is also caused by a lack of adequate laboratories to test pesticides and the costs of laboratory analyses.
    The EU has invested 200 million Euro in trying to provide centralised drinking water in 100 villages in Romania. Unfortunately, none of these 100 villages so far have clean drinking water because the lack of private investment from citizens has been underestimated in the EU plans. The central pumps and pipes have been built but are not being used, as the citizens cannot pay for the connection to their homes and the monthly water fee. Even if these centralised systems were operating, it is not certain that the water provided would be pesticide free as there is a lack of laboratories to test this.
    WECF therefore believes that it is important to focus on low-cost preventive solutions such as eco-sanitation and organic agriculture and is promoting these alternatives with policy makers and NGOs.

Margriet Samwel is Eco-sanitation, Water and Agriculture officer for WECF, Women in Europe for a Common Future, wecf@wecf.org, website www.wecf.org

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 63, March 2004, pages 8-9]